the good thing about android is that its as simple or as complicated as you want. I would have no issues with any of my family getting one because out the box the simple features like email, call and text are easily understood.

But then you can get installing apps, tinkering in the settings, and rooting/theming are very simple to do. I haven't gone into any of that more complicated and detailed stuff, because there is soooo much to show of and because it was more meant to be what android does without any extra work. Just check out xda forums for an overview of all the customisation that android offers if you want it.

I really like the nice clean look, though bear in mind you could change this with your own device. Unless you mean the apps themselves. And I do admit, some of them "look" a bit basic, but most have settings galore to tinker with and make the app work just as you want.

I will probably get round to reviewing other apps at some point too. As it stands, I have just shown off some fairly standard and non flashy ones with the odd exception. Also, pretty much all of them are free with a couple costing under 1.50.

As you say ras, I have an old build of android on old hardware. I really can't wait to. Get a new phone with 2.1. And google are updating all the time, and with google buzz just launched its a good time to be buying into the android system because its an exciting place to be.

jurassicjim wrote:But then you can get installing apps, tinkering in the settings, and rooting/theming are very simple to do. I haven't gone into any of that more complicated and detailed stuff, because there is soooo much to show of and because it was more meant to be what android does without any extra work.

Good review so far, but if I'm honest you haven't shown what Android is like with out additional work. You have a custom ROM, a custom home screen an after market SMS app with a custom keyboard, an app for quick swapping of profiles. Al of which take time to find install and configure.

A stock Android home screen for example would be a lot more like this one

I did explain my changes when I went over each individual thing. The only big thing I have gained from my custom rom is speed the phone works at, but with new android phones this isn't an issue.

I don't think its a stretch to expect any body reading this on a tech blog would themselves install free apps available to any body and play around.

The keyboard is free, the profile switcher is free, the home screen is free. And to find and install of of those programs would probably take 2 minutes max. Everything I have shown can be done on a non rooted phones, I think.

But still if the point was to show what Android does with out any extra work then you can't really show how your phone runs and looks with its custom apps and home screen because they require extra work, no matter how little that may be.

Sure it is pretty much a given that the members here will be installing apps and roms to get the most from the device, but that is not the given remit of the review. In the same way I can't offer a review of Android from my Hero, even straight from the box, because the Hero is skinned by HTC with the Sense UI which improves on most aspects of the operating system at the cost of a little speed and update efficiency

As a review of your phone in its current state it is very comprehensive and I appreciate it, It shows the potential of the OS very nicely.

My point was never to show only android in its bear and naked state, as nobody getting this phone will use it like that. Asides from people who get free upgrades and don't care about phones. I don't consider downloading something from the market extra work unless your really lazy though anyway .

I said this in my opening paragraph "As promised a visual review to Android. A couple of disclaimers first. This is Android 1.6 running a custom rom. The rom is not themed or anything, so what you see here is pretty much what you can do on a G1 out the box, save a few minor things like the look of the dialler and calculator etc. " That is the given remit of the review, if there has to be one. To show what you can do with a standard G1 out the box.

What I mean is you can do this out the box, the market is open to you and all this functionality is available to you, pretty much for free. Yes, it may take 2 minutes of your life to get a few apps, but that's the point in the android system, so my guide represents this.

Thanks for this, ive now taken the custom rom plunge and it was very easy to do. not sure its very different since I went for a 1.5 rom anyway. Will need to wait for the 2.1 to surface now. Have you tried Dolphin as an alternative web browser? I much prefer it.

Been thinking a lot about the physical keyboard recently. Decided that not sure I will miss it too much. Think one of the main reasons i'm dubious is the space on the phone, but I'm using a G1 with a comparatively small screen compared to newer android models. So sure everything will be a lot more user friendly on bigger android phones. Especially if I went for the Xperia, which I'm quite tempted by.

Also, with sype I have found myself just going one handed in portrait mode and doing that rather that using the physical keyboard for small long texts.

I have the Hero (or G2 if you enjoy renaming things for no reason). I'm actually very happy with how much faster everything is now, but I would like a newer version, it seems even upgrading to 1.6 would bring some new stuff.

Well the rom I have is 1.6 in skeleton, but has some features from 2.1, like the clock, car app thing, music player etc. Also skinned it with darkstar so looks quite nice too. I'm unafraid of widgets now too with a new rom, before my phone would be a bit too slow, but now I feel like I can use android the way its meant to be with podcasts and rss feeds etc happily updating all the time.

I believe the hero is getting a 2.1 update in march, so hopefully not too long to wait for something a bit more. You still have the old market don't you? Went on my girlfriends hero the other day and completly forgot that it had been upgraded.

One reason I'm def leaning towards a google own phone with no sense is the faster updates.

The Hero's official 2.1 update is coming mid-march as Jim says, however there are a few very stable Sense enabled custom ROMs built on the AOSP release.

I have tried a few, mainly VillainROM and CKDroid, they are very stable and offer pretty much all the features. Generally camera only works to 3mp and Facebook contact sync doesn't work. I keep rolling back to my current rooted stock version though as I can't be bothered setting everything up again.

There are also a few vanilla 2.1 ROMs for the Hero, VanillianROM is very good but Sense is just too nice to do with out.

Yeah, have super 1.9.2. I check that page daily now as he seems to be developing the rom really fast.

Have you tried Titanium Backup? It basically backup's all your app's etc, but also backups the data contained in them. So you don't have to change any settings or anything like that. Makes wiping and reinstalling so so much easier.